How a courtroom ruling has put Bihar govt’s plans for iconic Patna library in limbo | India Information
3 min learnPatnaMar 13, 2026 07:12 AM IST
The grand revival plan for Patna’s iconic Sinha Library has been placed on the again burner after the Supreme Court docket earlier this week quashed a legislation by means of which the state authorities acquired the library in 2015.
As a part of the revival plan, the federal government had digitised a lot of books within the library.
On March 10, the Supreme Court docket struck down the Shrimati Radhika Sinha Institute and Sachchidananda Sinha Library (Requisition & Administration) Act, 2015, terming it unconstitutional. This restored the administration and administration to the Shrimati Radhika Sinha Institute and Sachchidananda Sinha Library Belief, which had challenged the acquisition of the library by the state authorities. The belief moved the apex courtroom after the Patna Excessive Court docket dominated in favour of the state authorities.
Of their order, Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta criticised the legislation, calling it “manifestly arbitrary” and in violation of Article 14 of the Structure. The order famous that the state authorities failed to speak allegations of mismanagement or present causes for acquisition earlier than passing the Act.
“A measure of such sweeping consequence, together with full divestiture of an establishment that has functioned for almost a century, can’t relaxation on assumptions that had been by no means put to the very individuals sought to be displaced. This itself is a robust indicator of the arbitrary character of the legislative motion,” the order stated.
The highest courtroom additionally famous that Part 7 of the Act authorised the state to pay compensation as much as a most of Rs 1, and stated that in addition to aggravating the arbitrariness, it vested “unguided discretion within the legislature” and lowered compensation to “a nominal and illusory determine”.
The library, based by Sachchidananda Sinha in 1924, holds vital cultural and historic significance, having been inaugurated by Sir Henry Wheeler, then Governor of Bihar and Orissa. The library was visited by main freedom motion figures, together with Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr Rajendra Prasad, Acharya J B Kripalani and famend Hindi poet Ramdhari Singh Dinker.
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Anjay Kumar, a senior functionary of Sinha Library, stated one of many trustees would quickly go to Patna to take over the library. Kumar additionally stated that the state authorities had carried out the digitisation of uncommon books within the final five-six years.
A Bihar authorities official stated, “First, authorized specialists will learn the Supreme Court docket order. We are going to see if we will nonetheless search a evaluate of the SC order by an even bigger Bench. In any case, it’s a setback, particularly after we had a grand revival plan for the long-lasting library.” The state authorities had already digitised over 25,000 paperwork within the library.
The library has over 3 lakh books, together with 50,000 uncommon volumes. It has full editions of the newspapers Amrit Bazar Patrika and Harijan, which performed a key function within the freedom wrestle. It additionally has handwritten manuscripts in Urdu, Persian, and Sanskrit, in addition to British-era authorized digests and courtroom data.
The library’s uncommon books part consists of first-edition books signed by nationwide leaders and a Persian translation of the Bhagavad Gita.
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The library was named after Radhika Sinha, the spouse of Sachchidananda Sinha — thought-about one of the essential makers of contemporary Bihar. He was the provisional president of the Constituent Meeting of India when it met in Delhi for the primary time in 1946.
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